Happy 4th of July, everyone! With the Captain America movie coming out, more people than ever will be aware of Cap’s World War II roots and nemesis The Red Skull. But he’s also had some other bizarre enemies over the years, and we don’t just mean Arnim Zola and M.O.D.O.K. For (last) week’s LIST we proudly present some of Captain America’s lesser-known foes.

Since my three exciting days in costume at the San Diego Comic Con this year, I’ve been thinking a great deal about costumes, their design (both from the artist’s and the character’s p.o.v.), and functionality (Incredibles pegged it right: capes are a pain).

The biggest mystery remaining is the briefs on the outside that some heroes wear. Why? But more importantly why do heroes that survived the Golden Age intact uniformly wear these?

a. breaks up large areas of a single color. Think about when they briefly revamped Batman back in the 90’s sans briefs. There was too much gray, and the inkers were placing shadow there anyway. The fight was lost and Batman regained his dignity.

b. conveniently gets rid of the need to draw even the hint of the old twig and berries.

But as Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent why? When they were cobbling these outfits together why?

I’m willing to concede that modesty might have played a factor. A sports cup would have achieved the same goal.

A friend pointed out that in Superman’s case his mother designed the costume after Kryptonian fashions. They’re aliens and culturally underwear is worn on the outside.

In Namor’s case, it makes sense. He’s a swimmer and needs to weigh less and not create much drag.

I don’t know why for the other characters, but I have noticed that those with the extra layer seemed to have fared better in the void between the Golden Age and the Silver Age. With the exception of Hawkman, all of the DC characters that received a revamp didn’t wear briefs. By the 50’s they didn’t need them either. Flash didn’t sport them, neither did GL. The Silver Age wasn’t so worried about modesty I guess.